The Kitchen

When we bought the Main Street house, the kitchen looked a little better than this.  It had a floating tile floor... which it turns out was over carpet and two layers of linoleum.  Being in the middle of the house, it was narrow and dark. 

The dining room is adjacent to the kitchen (sharing the doorway in the photos above).  We knew they had to be married into one big eat in kitchen.  The scary part... there's a brick wall in between, from the foundation to the attic.  Like that could stop us!!

First, our crew built support walls on either side of the brick wall (upstairs and downstairs).

Our crew started on the 2nd floor, taking the wall down between two of the upstairs bedrooms. Once the plaster was off the bricks, they could be shoved onto the floor.

Then they went out through the hallway, into a chute built from one of the second floor exterior doors (that walk out onto a non-existent deck) and into a St. Henry Tile truck, waiting to be turned into gravel (or something like that!).

Here's the chute full of bricks.

And here's the kitchen full of bricks!

Of course, when we look at the kitchen we see something like...

Squint really hard, and maybe you'll see it, too!

Here's the dining room portion, wall removed, framed, and ready for electrical and insulation.

And here's the kitchen side.  Much brighter with the wall removed.  Now think about the finished kitchen above in this space.  Can't see it?  Squint harder!!!

Progress

We've owned the Main St. house for a few weeks now.  So far we've:

Removed carpet from 2 first floor rooms.

Removed 3 random types of hardwood & laminate hardwood look from three rooms.

Removed tray drop ceilings from 3 rooms.

Removed woodwork from 2 rooms.

Pulled up snap together tile, then a layer of carpet, then a layer of glue from the kitchen & back hallway.

Found quarter-sawn oak in the master bedroom. (YES!)

Removed trash & junk.  

Removed slate tile from hallway walls.

Collected & organized building materials left in house.

Removed metal barn siding from master bedroom walls.

Removed doors from ceilings. 

Shopped at Lima ReStore for... stuff.  No luck.

Window shopped at Markle Exit 286 Antique Mall for furniture.  LOTS of luck (:  Uh-oh budget...

www.markleantiques.com
Bought killer dust masks.

Planned the new layout of the first floor, including adding a half bath, creating a master suite, and removing a floor-to-ceiling brick wall to accomodate a modern eat-in kitchen/dining room.

Talked Todd Topp into helping us figure out how to make replacement transoms (:

Invented a new food- the "cold pocket"- for when you think you have a working microwave, but you don't!  Yum...

Thank goodness for my sweet cousin Mariah, who volunteered to watch our one year old twins, Hank & Winnie, for a week of her Christmas vacation.  Without her help, we would just be getting started.

The details

The St. Henry history books refer to the Main Street house as the "Bernard Romer Jr. 12 room brick house."  It must have been quite the sight in its day.  As we have seen from some of the details during demolition, it was a dental office for... well almost forever.  I vaguely remember getting some (painful) dental work done there.  My dad vividly remembers a similar experience.  More recently, it has been a duplex and then a large home in need of some attention.  Here it is in its better days:

Here are a few architectural details that sucked me in:

1. Awesome trim.  It may not be in perfect shape, but it's nothing a little paint can't fix.

It's not as impressive as the Kremer-Hoying house trim (below, in the kitchen in Hank & Winnie's birthday photo, finished) but not too shabby.

Back to my list.

2. Details around the lights.  Yes, they would look nicer around an actual fixture rather than a light bulb, but you get the picture.  

3. 2nd floor patio.  Clearly it's missing, but it's going to be super cool.

4. Tons of windows.  From the living room, we can keep an eye on Bacon Garman.  If that's not entertainment, nothing is!  (:

5. Beadboard.  I love beadboard.  Nuff said.

Also, there's a pretty cool metal ceiling in the main hallway.  We have a love/hate relationship with it, in that I love it & Mitch hates it.

6. Clawfoot tub.  I have no idea if it's old, but it's in good shape.

7. Attic circle windows with decorative wood trim

8. An attic.  A place for kids to poke around & giggle because they shouldn't be there.  They'll have little adventures & run from ghosts.  I love it (:

9. Transoms

They'll look better with actual windows in them, but they let in nice light.  Here's an original transom, painted, above an exterior door in the 2nd floor hallway.

The (next) Schlater House

I swore I would never do it again.  My husband, Mitch, agreed.  And yet, here we are, diving head first into another total remodel. 

It's a beast... and it's going to be awesome. The view from the street is only the half of it.

The rear of the house is even bigger... and uglier... than the front.  For now, anyway.

6 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, dining, laundry, library, living room, man cave, entry way, and a huge, albeit creepy, third floor.

The view from the attic is impressive- we can see across town.  The best part, for now at least, is the view of our greenish-gray bungalow two blocks away.

I still love our Kremer-Hoying Road house.  The awesome kitchen, homey-ness, warmth, gorgeous woodwork, and tons of storage.  

But, no matter.  

My crow bar and calculator are ready.  Here we go!